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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Delegation of Congressional Power

Congress should stop delegating its power and authority and the Supreme Court should return to its original precedent of the Non-Delegation Doctrine.

Congress is intended to be held politically accountable for its actions. Often, the Supreme Court has refused to strike down bad legislation because it opined that punishing bad legislation is a job reserved to the people at the ballot box. The problem with the demise of the Non-Delegation Doctrine is that when Congress delegates its power, the people lose their ability to hold it accountable because the blame for the effects of a bad statute can almost always be laid at the feet of the federal bureaucracy that executed the statute; not the passage of the statute itself. Of course this evolution of the way to Congress governs is quite agreeable to Congresspersons who do not want to be held responsible for trampling the Constitution, abridging liberties, or raising taxes. When citizens rail against the out-of-control tax code or the heavy hand of the Internal Revenue Service, many Congresspersons feign ignorance claiming outrage belongs to the IRS as the culprit while begging off the responsibility they themselves were intended to bear. Congress could reign in abuses committed by renegade Federal Agencies in this very session if it was committed to doing so rather than merely pointing fingers and deflecting blame. Congressional delegation of its powers and authorities is the foremost cause of the infringements upon our liberties over time.